


Soon

by moodiful819



Category: Naruto
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Humor, Implied Relationships, Metafiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3368654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodiful819/pseuds/moodiful819
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with a little red ball...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soon

**Author's Note:**

> So I couldn’t sleep last night, so I was looking at the ksanon tumblr and saw the little ask about the red ball, so if you want to blame something for this, blame that ask and the gif that spawned this.
> 
> DEDICATED TO THE AWESOME GIRLS OF KSANON WHO CONSTANTLY RUIN MY LIFE WITH THEIR BEAUTIFUL FANART THAT CONSUME ME WITH FEELS.

"What is it?"

The question was hushed, a quiet whisper that ghosted along the walls of the ancient temple they found themselves in. Glancing back to catch her gaze, Kakashi watched as Sakura ran a light touch over the puzzling hieroglyphs etched into the walls, puzzlement knit into her brows. He looked on in sympathy; despite having decoded the carvings, the words had made little sense to them, but he guessed he shouldn’t be surprised. It wasn’t as if their main objective had made any sense either.

"It appears to be a red ball," Kakashi threw out thoughtfully, dimly aware of the scathing glare cast upon his back. Not helpful, he knew, but hearing the sound of his own voice helped cope with his mutual confusion at their mission. They had received a summons from Tsunade requesting them to deal with a mysterious object in a far off land. Looking back on it, he didn’t know why they took it. This kind of treasure-hunting wasn’t in their usual jurisdiction, and it wasn’t like this mission paid that well either. However, Tsunade had told them that they had been requested specifically for this mission—that lives were at stake—they had to go.

"So what are we supposed to do with this?" Sakura queried, tiptoeing lightly around the pedestal that the object had been set on. 

"It doesn’t say," Kakashi replied, squinting at their mission scroll in the light of the lit torch by his head.

Sakura scoffed. “Fat lot that does us.” Frowning deeply, she stared flatly at the red orb. “What did shishou see in this dumb thing anyway?” she asked, nudging it with a long, gloved finger. 

She had expected it to do nothing. At the very least, maybe it would wiggle on its stand. Except it didn’t wiggle. Instead, it soared off the pedestal. Sakura stared in mute horror, only remembering to breathe when the orb landed safely in the hands of her former teacher.

"Careful," he cautioned, ascending the steps to deposit it back into her hands, "I know this mission is boring, but we shouldn’t take it out on the poor, defenseless relic."

But she didn’t mean to. When she had poked it, she had felt a definite weight to the thing; it should have withstood her poke, and she was 97% sure she hadn’t used any chakra, so why did it move?

But it would’ve been too much work to explain this to Kakashi, especially when she didn’t understand what had happened herself. Instead, she gave a contemplative “Right,” and steered their hands to place it on the relic together in case it had any thoughts of escape again. Confident that it wouldn’t move again, Sakura lifted her hands away and stretched catlike at the top of the stairs.

"Well, at least we can go home now," the medic announced happily, descending the steps of the altar to the waiting Copy Nin when a low rumbling sound suddenly started behind her. At the bottom of the steps, she found her shadow stretching across a sea of red and caught Kakashi’s mildly terrified gaze as he stared behind her. Turning, a red light began emanating from the orb.

"More…"

Hastily, she was yanked to the ground. Caught off-guard, she fell forward, caught by her comrade. Feet back on the floor, she steadied herself against him.

 _"More…"_  the voice emanating from the orb rumbled again, a sound both low and high, singular and cacophonous. The light hovering around the relic grew stronger, shooting out to strike the floor and walls. Figures appeared in arcs and streaks, faces screaming and weeping with mouths agape in an emotion torn somewhere between agony and ecstasy that only grew louder as they trained their hollow eyes on the two Konoha nin. A shaft of light struck the wall, coloring the glyphs. The words that had puzzled them now hovered around them, glowing and beating like throbbing, pulsing hearts. The word “ **FEELS** " was the one repeated most; wails echoed the chamber.

"What is going on?!" Sakura shouted over the noise, closing her ears to the sound.

Clutching his student protectively, Kakashi looked around them, his expression cagey. “I don’t know!” he shouted back, wincing as the orb screamed even louder, a piercing joyous shriek. 

"They’re touching!" one of the underlying voices shouted.

"ALL MY FEELS!" cried another.

"Fanart! Fics! Gifs!" demanded another still.

 _ **MORE**_  was the thing of general consent. Walls shuddered from the strength of its desire. The pedestal crumbled onto the floor, but the orb has surpassed the need for such a pitiful thing, now hovering mid-air in a glow both lovely and terrifying.

That terror spiked, however, when the light aimed for them. Forming tendrils, it picked them up in its embrace, clutching them around the waist like a pair of dolls. Horrified, they tried to beat it back, only for their hands to pass through it harmlessly as it lifted them from the ground.

Sakura shut her eyes, waiting for her inevitable end. What else could you do in that kind of situation, after all? She couldn’t hurt it—she couldn’t even touch it. This was worse than the Ninja War.  _At least then, she could punch something—_ Not to mention she thought she was done with this freaky-deaky ghost shit when they defeated Obito—and she waited for death with gritted teeth. She could only hope that the orb wouldn’t throw her into a wall for that poke earlier, and that her end would be swift and painless.

Except it wasn’t. Rather, there was never an end at all. 

Tentatively opening her eyes, she found herself under the cover of a shield of light. Wrapped in the oddly comforting light, she watched as rocks from the ceiling slid harmlessly over her head to the side. Wonderment filled her—at the properties of this strange light, at the warmth filling her skin into her heart, at her still being alive—and she turned to Kakashi, expecting him to be a similar picture of wonderful confusion. But he wasn’t. Instead, his eyes were locked on her figure, snared in a breathless, light-less fear. They had probably been like that since this had all started.

"Kakashi?"

This was the part where he should have blinked. That’s what always happened in stories—the guy blinked and then went back to normal—but Kakashi’s gaze remained stubbornly open, and a frown pulled at the medic’s lips. If he didn’t blink soon, his eyes would dry out, becoming uncomfortable. For his sake, she hoped he would rest his eyes soon, but he didn’t. It was as if he was paralyzed. As if he were too afraid to close them for fear of her disappearing in that scant moment of darkness where his attention was away.

But Sakura didn’t see that fear, too busy trying to decipher the disbelief growing in his eyes as the light gently nudged them closer together. Even when it deposited them on the floor, safe from harm, it didn’t go away. While she was swimming with joy, wonder, the bright, vibrant, ecstatic curiosity only discovery could bring, Kakashi remained frozen in place, clutched in the same darkness he had been when they had been floating in the air.

Coming down from her weightlessness, she shelved her excitement to place a shy hand on his mask.

"Kakashi…?"

He jerked at her touch, a sharp intake of air filled her ears. It was as if she had woken him from a spell, a prince frozen in ice thawed by her touch. Clutching her hand, he blinked repeatedly, focusing on her form with the same frozen fear that she had seen in him earlier before he suddenly sagged forward, sighing heavily in relief.

"Oh thank Kami, you’re alright. I thought—I thought you were—I was afraid that you—"

He cut himself off; the hand that had been wound tightly around hers was gone too. Confused, she tried to search his gaze, but he turned away from her.

"We need to get out of here," he suddenly declared. "Come on." There was no room for discussion in his tone, no room for an explanation or the request for one as he darted down the hall from which they entered. Still dazed from what had just happened, Sakura had to scramble after him.

"Hey! Wait!" she cried, her voice echoing down into the darkness falling away from the ruined altar room, the relic forgotten. It was as if it ceased to exist after it had set them down, but it hadn’t. While they had forgotten it, it hadn’t forgotten them.

Staring down the path the two shinobi had taken, hands working over its glow, it smiled knowingly.

_Soon…_


End file.
